


Near-Death Experiences can beat Marriage Counseling

by Matteic



Category: Lost in Space (TV 2018)
Genre: Auburn Space Dad, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I actually read the smut and more than once but a reader needs her h/c fix now and then, My medical knowledge comes from Cracked, Shameless h/c fix, Sickfic, This is the fastest I've ever written a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 14:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17204705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matteic/pseuds/Matteic
Summary: They're back on the Resolute and John's repeated crashes are getting the best of him.Basically one of the fics I've been building in my head since I saw the series and that I miraculously managed to put on paper. Screen. Whatever. Because people like a (hopefully so) good Hurt/Comfort now and then.





	Near-Death Experiences can beat Marriage Counseling

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer : I got to half of episode 8 before getting sick of June Harris and finished the series by reading the summaries on Wikipedia. So, uh, they managed to contact the Resolute and most of people got safe, even if they were very close to get attacked by the robots' ship. Don't ask me, I skipped the summaries just to know if everyone was alive. I wasn't even supposed to be on Netflix, I had sewing to do for X-Mas, but I had gotten tired of podcasts and I _had to know_. Anyway there's not enough h/c fic in this fandom because you are all depraved people. 
> 
> Not betaed because I didn't want to lose my nerve.

They'd been on the Resolute for one day. ONE.

"Mrs. Robinson ? Your husband is in med bay."

"What ? What happened ?"

"Please come as soon as you can."

A message. She had been out of com for a few hours, making sure the kids were settling in and trying to check where every refugee was while West was making inventory. John was to meet with Command to explain what happened. It was five hours ago. The message was two hours old.

She tried to com Judy, who had made a beeline for the medical quarters as soon as she got cleared, but her daughter didn't answer. She quickly commed Penny and Will, briefly explaining what she knew, before hurrying to the med bay.

An android asked her to identify herself, then had her wait for the doctor. It was an harassed-looking woman, quite older than herself, whom she had seen maybe a couple of time before. She was one of the people who had managed to stay on the ship.

"What happened ?"

"Do you know how your husband was doing this last week ?"

"What ?"

The doctor sighed, and typed something on her wrist pad. John's smiling picture appeared, next to another picture of him unconscious, a nasty bruise around his eye, oxygen mask on his face. What she could read of his vitals were passable, but they weren't good.

"Apparently he was caught in a confrontation between two engineers and got hit hard enough to fall down. We were called when he had difficulties waking up."

Oh God. She didn't need Judy to tell her that if someone got knocked out and didn't wake up in the next five minutes there was a solid possibility of brain damage. And he'd already been knocked around a few weeks before. The doctor read her face right.

"He woke up enough for a neuro check and the MRI looked good. What is more worrying is his general state. Did you notice him being tired this last week ?"

"He went into space in what was basically a tin can to contact you guys and get 60 people to safety. It may have been a little rough."

"That, too."

"What do you mean ?"

"He has four broken ribs, and several bruised ones. That's why he's on oxygen – he just can't breathe deeply. He has contusions in a weird configuration around his torso, as if he'd had a belt held much too tight around his floating ribs. Ah. That seems to ring a bell."

Maureen found herself explaining, in detail, how they had made John prepare for his jump. The band tightened, again and again, around ribs that were already bruised, how they depressurized his suit a dozen times before Judy made them stop. The doctor looked at her as if she had confessed being the one to knowingly send her husband to a deadly mission.

Wait. She had.

"He's a soldier." That excuse wasn't getting any more convincing.

"He is. But there's a limit to every soldier. From the tests, I can tell you he's been running himself ragged. He's dehydrated, and his albumin levels are low. He also seems to be suffering from sleep deprivation."

"His neuro scores…"

"They're normal for that level of exhaustion. Actually he's not the worst case here. But he was lucky getting that far before collapsing."

 _He knew what she was doing_ , Maureen forced himself to think. _He volunteered. It was that or having everybody die._ Still, she couldn't help feeling guilty when the doctor let her in the room.

John was lying on his back, the head of the bed slightly raised up. He was still wearing the oxy mask. The bruise around his eye was blooming, and he had a small cut on his cheekbone, vivid against chalk-white skin. He looked utterly exhausted, sleeping deeper than she had seen him in years, except when they had all gotten the flu. A heart monitor was discreetly beeping near the head of the bed – his blood pressure was too low – and she could count at least two IVs. Getting closer she recognized saline and a mix of glucose and vitamins Judy had once explained was given to victims of malnutrition, the step before enteric supplementation.

"There's some bruising on his kidneys, between that and the dehydration we put a catheter so we can keep an eye on his urinary output," whispered the doctor. "He was given morphine to help with the pain from his fractures and that knocked him out. When we're sure he can keep food down and his breathing is better we'll be able to release him. Mostly he needs sleep. That's the best thing for him now. Can you stay with him ?"

Maureen nodded mutely.

"As you can see, he's monitored, but if there's something alarming, don't hesitate to call." At her nod, the doctor left. They were spread thin too, a too-small team on a ship full of traumatized refugees. That was also why Judy had been in a hurry to go help them.

The children – she had to reassure them. She managed to get hold of Will and explained as much as she could, without telling everything about John's wounds. It would be his own choice to tell or don't tell his son he was the one who had broken his ribs (who was she kidding, of course he wouldn't tell him. Not like that wouldn't stop Will from guessing).

After that she tried to com Judy again, left a message, then called West and Victor. Then she just had to… sit, and wait for John to wake up. In the silence, she could hear the slight rattle of his breathing. His eyelids shivered – he was deeply out, thoroughly exhausted. There was nothing she could do, and she didn't want to leave him.

She turned off the sound of her com and resumed her task of trying to contact everybody. Judy sent her a message – she was just coming out of O.R. and would come as soon as possible. It was nearly an hour later, and she entered the room with two cups of coffee and two sandwiches. Maureen looked at her watch, surprised. She hadn't realized nearly three hours had gone by.

"How is he ?" asked her daughter before taking a bite of her synthesized BLT.

"The doctor said he's exhausted, mostly. My God, I don't even know her name."

Judy got a careful hold of her father's wrist to read the bracelet wrapped around it and typed something on her pad.

"Oh, it's Dr Collins. She's good. She was my tutor before the crash. He's in good hands."

Maureen nodded, reassured. "She said he has a couple broken ribs, bruised kidneys and he's dehydrated. They want to keep him a few days." John turned slightly his head toward her voice. "John ?"

"Dad ?"

He tried to take a deep breath and grimaced, groaning softly in pain.

"Dad, can you open your eyes ? Can you squeeze my hand ?"

"John, can you hear me ? You're at med bay. Everybody's fine."

He was waking, slowly, and fighting for it. It was a few minutes before he was able to open his eyes and answer to Judy's orders. He tried to speak, but his voice was weak and muffled by the mask.

"Don't try to speak just yet, okay ? Follow my finger with your eyes."

Even with eyes crossing from exhaustion, he tried hard to obey and Judy, after a look at his pupils (he flinched from the light), declared herself satisfied. She sat on the bed, careful not to jostle his ribs.

"Do you remember what happened ?"

His voice was a bit stronger, just enough to be heard through the mask. No, he didn't remember fully – just going into the meeting, and the tension in the room. He also had no memory of getting taken to med bay. Judy reassured him and he dozed off again, his hand loosely holding Maureen's. She was loath to leave him, but she needed to get back to their quarters. Judy proposed to stay to make sure he ate something and wasn't in too much pain. Maureen gave a last caress to her husband's forehead (he didn't react) and left the med bay.

As she had guessed, Will was frantic. She and Penny spent some time calming him, reassuring him that he couldn't have known what would happen, that his father would never blame him. No such luck – he would only believe it when John actually told him. Damn that Harris woman. She had managed to get into their head, each one of them. She was in detention now, waiting for her judgment on Alpha Centauri. They still had months to get there, and thanks to their testimonies Harris was to be kept in very secure guard, and kept from communicating with people who weren't highly trained in psychological warfare.

John was one of these people, actually, but she'd already decided to keep him home as much as possible. She wasn't sure when was the last time he had been able to actually wind down. They all needed rest – and some stability. Not being punched, kicked in the back and thrown into a wall (again). She didn't think it would be easy to make John rest once he was able to stand up, but she hoped to make him see reason. And the kids would hopefully help her.

By five days, John was home. He still needed a nap during the day, but his skin had gone back to his usual freckled pallor. Penny and Will were delighted to have their father close at hand and Judy threatened to rat him out to Dr. Collins if he didn't actually _rest_ and take time to recover. He slowly taught hand-to-hand combat to Will before letting him loose at West (Not Don. She wasn't calling him Don. Not yet. He still had a lot of honorable intentions to prove). They slept soundly at night, molded to each other. She hadn't felt this good with him for years.

As she was pretty sure to have heard Prisha say to her husband, a couple of near-death experiences wasn't the most endorsed method to make a nearly broken couple whole again, but it did the trick.


End file.
